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Friday, October 10, 2008

Deathless Art

Schubert was much more experienced than his 31 years would suggest. Classical composers are sophisticated, that goes without saying, but how advanced were the greats at 28 years of age? Schubert was gifted as a child and writing with charm and his unique voice at age twelve, at the end of his short life he was a giant.

Yes he was striving to be an opera composer and with Rossini and Mozart's operas there wasn't room for more, but Schubert is a great composer that had limited access to orchestras. In the last year of life, which Benjamin Britten described "miraculous", Schubert's compositions are sublime. His interplay between light and dark, major and minor are more than techniques but a subtext to our inner selves.

On the piano this Sunday the last of Franz Schubert's Impromptus. In the hands of a great interpreter, these works are transcendental art. When you have a pianist of the caliber of Edwin Fischer you have music of the highest order.